Abstract: What Now - Geologists, Geophysicists?

By

Michel T. Halbouty

There are large significant reserves yet to be found on the onshore in the United States. These big reserves of the future lie in the less obvious traps such as paleogeomorphic or stratigraphic. To find these elusive traps, it will require high imaginative thinking combined with the use of the tools of every significant discipline employed in the pursuit of petroleum reserves. We should be drilling many thousands more wildcat wells per year than we have been in each of the last few years, which means we must find many new thousands of good meritorious wildcat prospects each year. It is evident that we cannot find these additional prospects, and the required new reserves to meet our future needs, by employing present exploration philosophy and methods.

There is no question that explorers for petroleum are facing a challenge of the greatest magnitude. Geologists and geophysicists can rise to the challenge of finding our needed future petroleum reserves by abandoning old prejudices, adopting new ideas, and exploring the remaining potential of this vast country of ours with more daring and imagination.

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